Edward J. Renehan Jr.’s "Deliberate Evil" is about a true crime from long ago: the upper-class murder that shook Salem, Massachusetts in the 1830s. That spooky setting is fleshed out with lots of literary references, enriching the... Read More

Adam Roberts’s entertaining cultural survey "It’s the End of the World" takes an omnivorous approach to the apocalypse, devoting space to possible mass extinctions wrought by deities, zombies, viruses, and climate change. The book... Read More

"Under the Rainbow" is an amiable and elegant diary set during Covid-19 stay-at-home orders, when rainbows were displayed as a symbol of unity and appreciation with Britain’s National Health Services workers. James Attlee reports from... Read More

"The God Beat" collects twenty-six unexpected, thought-provoking stories of belief. In the text, profiles of charismatic figures stand out, as of a hugging guru who tours Northern California in “Amma’s Cosmic Squeeze,” and of... Read More

The members of the Baby-Sitters Club are back—and wiser, older, and more inclusive—in the rich, diverse essays and comics of "We Are the Baby-Sitters Club". This vibrant collection reveals the impact of the series on its readers, who... Read More

The testimonies collected in "Voices of the Border" are powerful as they relay systemic failures to care for those who seek asylum at the US’s southern border. The humanitarian and Catholic Kino Border Initiative of Nogales serves... Read More

"Badvertising" is a marketing industry insider’s crabby compendium of the pitfalls that stymie advertising campaigns. In these essays, “Agents of Stupidity” are not inept spies, but trends that caused terrible ads. Drawing on his... Read More

Feminist lawyer Priya-Alika Elias’s excellent essay collection "Besharam" explores modern womanhood in two nations. Elias grew up in India, came to the US for college and law school, and returned to India. Her strong, engaging voice... Read More